Integrated vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 Command-Line Deployment

I started to play a bit with vSphere 6.0 this week in my lab, and I thought I could share the method I’m using to deploy the vCSA 6.0 with the new CLI installer. You can perform a vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 (vCSA) installation using this command-line installer from any virtual or physical server in the network.

In the vCSA ISO, you will find a “vcsa-cli-installer” folder with multiple sub folders. Currently, the vCenter Server Appliance command-line deployment is supported* on the following operating systems:

Windows 7/8, Windows Server 2008/2012 (win32 folder).

SUSE Linux 11 SP3 (lin64 folder).

Mac OS 10.9 (mac folder).

*: supported on these platform does not mean that it will not work on other operating systems.

This command-line installer method is using deployment templates in JSON format. The template folder is here to provide you 4 usable deployment examples.

Below is the JSON file I used to deploy a vCSA 6.0 in my lab. As mentioned in the comments, this template deploys a single vCenter Server Appliance with embedded Platform Service Controller (PSC) with tiny form factor (2 vCPUs, 8GB memory) and configure it with a static IP address.

Non-ephemeral distributed virtual port groups are not supported to deploy the vCSA.

You can not deploy to a temporary portgroup where you don’t have network connectivity: to configure the services, the installer needs to connect to the appliance via its IP address.

You can set optional arguments when using the CLI; however when set, settings in JSON file are ignored.

There is no pre-check function available for the network settings, so ensure that the values provided in the JSON file are valid (IP address, netmask, gateway, DNS, and so on).

I find this new scripted method of deployment for the vCSA really easy to understand and to consume. It can save you a lot of time if you need to deploy and deploy again (for lab purpose for example). 🙂

If I understand correctly, you’re trying to deploy a vCSA 6 to an ESXi 5.5 from a Windows 7 computer?
Have you checked if all requirements are met? Usually, 90% of the errors we have is because of missing DNS entries (or reverse DNS), storage or networking requirements not met, etc.